


Without You

by starsonfire



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 3x15, Canon Divergent AU, Clarke can't live without Bellamy, F/M, angst fest, perverse instantiation part 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsonfire/pseuds/starsonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy’s heart plummeted when the guards shoved him into the room. Clarke, bound to some sort of torture-post, was bleeding from two puncture wounds to the chest. The look on her face gave him the inescapable feeling that this was it.</p><p>There was no way out for them here.</p><p>“Bellamy.” Her voice cracked, and he startled, his eyes locking on hers.</p><p>~ a canon-divergent 3x15 AU in which Bellamy DOES get dragged to the throne room in an attempt to manipulate Clarke. ~</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without You

Bellamy was strong, but not strong enough to break loose from the iron grips of the two chipped guards escorting him down the dimly lit, grimy hallway leading to the throne room. He hadn’t been gagged, but he didn’t bother to shout. He knew there was no one at the top of this tower that could help him now.

As they neared the double doors, he could make out the panicked tenor of Clarke’s voice from within. He couldn’t tell what she was saying, but he could hear the distress in her tone like he could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.

“Clarke?” He called out, not sure what he was hoping to accomplish. He didn’t know what was left to say that was practical; they were trapped, the chipped army was coming, and their plan going in was just a whisper of a prayer in the first place. Her name on his tongue now was of use only as a comfort to him.

“No, no, please!” He could hear her clearly now as one of the guards began to open the door.

Bellamy’s heart plummeted when the guards shoved him into the room. Clarke, bound to some sort of torture-post, was bleeding from two puncture wounds to the chest. The look on her face gave him the inescapable feeling that this was it.

There was no way out for them here.

“Bellamy.” Her voice cracked, and he startled, his eyes locking on hers. The world suddenly felt like _too much_ \- the room seemed to waver as an invisible hand constricted his windpipe and an invisible stone settled on top of his chest. _No._ This couldn’t happen yet, this was too soon, he never got to tell her-

“The passphrase,” Abby said expectantly, her voice steel, the faintest hint of a smirk on her lips. Clarke bit her lip until blood sprang forth, staining her bottom lip crimson. She shook her head, fresh tears springing to her eyes.

“If that’s what you want, then,” Abby replied in a clipped voice. She turned, giving a curt nod to the guards restraining Bellamy.

Bellamy barely had time to turn his head before the knife plunged into his leg, sickeningly close to the spot Roan had chosen all those weeks ago. He let out a horrible sound, doubling over in agony. His vision spotted, and it took a moment for the dull roaring in his ears to subside before he realized Clarke was screaming.

“Stop it, just stop it, stop!” She took a ragged breath, pulling at her restraints. “It doesn’t have to be this way and you _know it_! Mom-” she glanced over at Abby. “I know you’re in there, somewhere! You know this is wrong, Mom, you know we can fix this, we can stop this! If we just-”

Abby ignored Clarke and turned again to nod at the guards. Bellamy felt himself being yanked up from his doubled-over position and held up with the same knife, the sharp edge grazing his throat already covered with his own blood.

“Stop!” Clarke shouted, her voice brittle from screams and tears. The knife pressed closer to Bellamy’s throat, and his eyes fell shut.

He didn’t want to remember Clarke like this, bleeding and tied up and crying. He wanted to remember her smiling next to him on Unity Day, the fire lighting up her golden hair and the first glimpse of happiness lighting up her eyes since they’d landed. He wanted to remember the way she smiled at him when she launched herself into his arms by the gates of Camp Jaha, when they were so happy to find each other still alive.

“No, wait!” A sob caught in her last syllable. “Wait. I’ll – I’ll tell you.”

Bellamy’s eyes snapped open. He barely registered the knife lowering from his neck.

“Clarke, no. You can’t do that,” Bellamy’s voice sounded defeated, even to himself. But did it matter? He _was_ resigned to this. He had been for a while now. He didn’t deserve any better. And if he could use his life as a last-ditch effort to save his friends, he would.

“Clarke, you know what will happen.” His eyes met hers again. Her face was glazed with fresh tears, and her struggle with the restraints had caused one of the wounds on her chest to start bleeding again.

“You can’t let that happen, Clarke.”

“I can’t let _this_ happen, Bellamy,” she said fervently, her voice thick.

Bellamy gave her a long look. He hoped she knew. He hoped she understood that he just couldn’t tell her here. Not like this.

“Yes, you can,” he said slowly, his voice soft. Now that his eyes had found hers again, they couldn’t leave them. Her gaze clung to his like a saving grace.

Clarke shook her head as more tears welled over onto her cheeks.

“Clarke, tell me,” Abby interrupted, her lifeless voice a stark contrast to the two others speaking in the room.

Clarke ignored her, her eyes never straying from Bellamy’ face.

“I can’t do this alone,” she pleaded, her shoulders hunching in supplication. Strands of hair clung to her wet cheeks, and she instinctively moved to push them away, only to realize her arms were still tied. Her bloodied lower lip began to tremble.

Bellamy felt his own tears prick behind his eyelids. He cleared his throat, hoping they wouldn’t spill over.

Slowly, Bellamy nodded at her, his jaw clenching even though he already knew his eyes were shining.

“Yes, you _can,_ princess.”

Clarke began to cry harder. He hadn’t used her old nickname in months.

It wasn’t an insult anymore. It was a vow on his lips.

She closed her eyes.

“Mom.”

Abby walked at a lazy pace across the room, her eyes narrowed. She stood in front of her daughter expectantly, her arms tightly crossed.

“ _Clarke_ -” she ignored the broken warning in his voice and gritted her teeth.

“Mom, the passphrase is _ascende_ –”

Clarke stopped speaking abruptly as Abby fell to the floor in a dead faint. Everyone in the room besides Bellamy followed suit, dropping to the floor without warning.

Clarke’s eyes frantically jumped around from person to person, studying them quickly.

“They’re – they’re not breathing,” she whispered incredulously. After a moment, Bellamy found his way out of his pain-addled stupor, shaking his head and moving carelessly around the fallen guards. He grimaced as he put weight on his wounded leg, trying to ignore the stream of blood trailing down to his ankle and soaking through his pants.

“Hold on, I got you,” he muttered as he stumbled next to her, unclasping the restraint around her neck and reaching back to free her hands.

“Bellamy,” she said in a strangled voice, her arms immediately flying up around his neck. He stumbled back, his weak leg faltering, but his hands fell around her waist, his shaking palms resting against the curve where her ribs sloped into her hips.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she cried into his chest, her voice muffled against the fabric of his jacket.

Bellamy swallowed hard. One hand rose to cradle the back of her head, and his eyes drifted shut as he buried his face in her neck.

“Shh, shh. It’s not your fault.” He inhaled, his breath unsteady against her neck. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated.

She pulled away from him, dragging her hands from his back to rest them on either side of his freckled, bloodstained face.

“I’m too selfish,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I couldn’t let it happen.” She brushed his hair out of his eyes, her thumb tracing a scar near his eye. “Not again.”

Bellamy’s eyes swam in hers. His hand left her hair to brush her cheek, tugging her bottom lip away from her worrying teeth and brushing the blood away with his thumb.

“You’re supposed to leave the bad decision making to me, you know. That’s my job.”

Clarke choked, the most pitiful excuse for a laugh that he’d ever heard.

“Just trying to even the score a little, I guess,” she said weakly. Her thumb still slowly traced the freckles under his scars.

Her breath hitched, and Bellamy tensed. Her eyes were trained behind him, and he snapped his head around, searching the room.

“Bellamy, look,” she said, nodding at her mother, who was still lying prone on the floor. Black, metallic liquid trailed out of Abby’s nose, pooling on the ground beneath her.

“Isn’t that what’s left over from a fried chip?” Bellamy asked, watching her closely as she crouched near her mother. Clarke nodded absently, her gaze intent on Abby’s still face.

She turned to Bellamy.

“Raven,” they said in unison, a strange cocktail of surprise and cautious excitement in their voices.

“She must’ve found a way to destroy ALIE from behind a screen,” Clarke exclaimed, flushing. “That means they should be waking up soon as their original selves.”

A gushing sigh of relief escaped from Bellamy’s constricted chest. “Oh my god,” he said in a low voice, wincing as he sank to the floor next to her. Clarke grimaced as she noticed him struggle.

“Here, let me help with the bleeding.” She reached back for one of the ropes that bound her hands and yanked it from the post. The wound was just above his knee, and his blood covered her hands as she tied the rope off above the punctured skin, hoping to slow down the bleeding. She carelessly wiped her hands against her stomach, only managing to clean haphazard spots across her palms.

“That should help a little for now,” She kneeled next to him, her knees pressing into the outside of his thigh.

“What about these?” Bellamy asked. His voice was gravelly as he traced a finger near one of the punctures on her chest. Clarke wondered vaguely if his fingertips registered the jump in her heartbeat under the skin he touched.

“I’ve had worse.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

She frowned slightly when his hand left her skin.

“How much longer do you think they’ll be out?” He asked, nodding to the chipped guards still laying on the floor.

“Not long,” she murmured, pushing herself back slightly and tiredly easing onto her elbow. Her head came to rest on Bellamy’s lap, and she sighed against his pants leg. He reached down to brush her hair out of her face, his callused fingers softly scratching against her cheek. She reached up and caught his hand in hers, drawing it to her lips and gently kissing his palm.

The smallest of smiles tugged at the corner of Bellamy’s tired mouth.

Maybe he’d live to tell her he _loved her more than anything_ one day –

But she already knew.


End file.
